My Anniversary Present: Death, death, and more death

Last night marked the first anniversary for the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign. Let me begin by saying that gaming with +Adam Muszkiewicz, +Wayne Snyder, +Bear Wojtek, +Gabriel Perez Gallardi, +James MacGeorge, +phil spitzer, +Jason Hobbs, and (once or twice) +John Iverson has been a blast. I think we've managed to game about 50 weeks out of the last 52, which ain't a bad run.

Sadly, Bear and James were unable to join us last night. In Bear's honor, the whole game was nothing but a series of dick jokes. +Jason Hobbs' Roll20 token was a giant dildo, even. Maybe it wasn't so much a series of dick jokes as it was the Metal Gods version of The Aristocrats.

And, yes, that's Bob Saget. A perfect choice don't you think?

Anyway, we each started off with two or three level zero guys. I made mine with the alternate level zero generator I posted recently (Note: There's been an update to how the dices rolls work, to make them a bit swingier. Fun!).  I ended up with a Brewer who spent time as a soldier (Jeddak), a dwarven apothecary who fell in with a bad crowd (Gnarrly), and an acolyte who was the black sheep of his family (Thulan). All of them had their high and low points, but none had very many hit points. This would prove... consequential. 

Adam ran an adventure from Brave Halfling, but altered for the Metal Gods universe. I don't think he ever mentioned what it was called. In any case, it was a lot of fun.

We started at a hole in the ground, at the top of a hill. I sent the brewer/soldier and the dwarf down first. They saw A SCARY SPIDER and were hauled back up out of reach. We got down there again, in numbers, and Jeddak the brewer/soldier nailed it with a thrown hammer. For once, I was rolling like a fuckin' beast. My guys just killed and killed and killed. We were filled with the spirit of Lemm the Killmaster, I think, for it was our mission to investigate this now-desecrated temple of Lemm. 

Backstory: Lemm the Killmaster, whose aspect is the Iron Boar, Snaggletooth, is one of the Metal Gods. In our campaign, "metal" is both a thing (it can be forged into weapons whereby Man can cast off the chains of his elven oppressors--Fuck the elves!), an attitude (make it brudl), and how we find the Lost Hymns (the musical connection). The Metal Gods are incarnations of Man as pantheon. They were men, once, but now they are gods. We give them worship by being awesome, where "awesome" is defined as the sorts of things you find on finer album covers and wizard vans. It's got a lot more in common with Wizards (the movie) than with The Hobbit (the Rankin/Bass vehicle of the same era), and with the ancient times (the 1970s, or even... the early 1970s) than with the current age. Anyway...

Having trounced the spider, we began to explore the temple. Everywhere, we found evidence of great antiquity and of the foul desecration. We also found evidence of a schism among the Faithful. Lemm is patron of getting wasted, fucking, and killing things well. Also (and here's my contribution) regretting not the deeds done, but the grimness of the world which results from them. The schism broke the temple into two factions: Those focused on the fucking and getting wasted and those more interested in the stabby, smashing, rending thing. This temple was held by the fighty ones, but they'd been attacked in their stronghold by a demon, and defeated. The demon's presence had sullied the environs, making mock of Lemm's power. This could not stand. We would purify it.

Before we started tonight, Adam made very clear that no good could come of hanging back, or even of doign things in ways less than totally awesome. We needed to approach our work with gusto. We needed to make it metal. We needed make it worthy of an album cover. We were up to the task. I won't go into every encounter we had, but suffice it to say that we fucked up a bunch of skeltons, some giant bats, and a boss skeleton of some kind. 

In the end, I was down to one character. Gnarrly the dwarf had died early on, from a spider bite. He made his save versus poison, but not versus mandible damage (3 points killed him). Thulan the acoloyte got stabbed by a skeleton, I think. I don't rightly remember. My last guy, Jeddak, charged into the boss fight, screaming like a Fury, mace raised high and swinging it with both hands. He faced a skeletal being wearing jeans, leather chaps, and a jean vest. He crushed that sonofabitch into oblivion. Boss... dead. It was appropriately Metal, I think. 

Honestly, I couldn't help to try very, very hard to make every encounter as awesome as I could. I wanted that album cover! Even with one guy left, I just didn't care. So, filled with the spirit of the Killmaster, he smashed that fucker's head in. Then, even with the scavenged scale mail (AC 16), Adam rolled an 18, did 3 points of damage (I only had 2). He died, then, cut down like a dog. But that's as it should have been. It was a perfect ending for my guys. I regret nothing. For Jeddak, Thulan, and Gnarrly, I offer one of the Lost Hymns in honor of their sacrifices:

Mother earth, mother earth enfold you in her cold embrace
Sinking down, killing ground, worm crawling on your cold white face
Win or lose, nought to choose, all men are equal when their memory fades
No one knows, friends or foes, if Valhalla lies beyond the grave

You died well, boys. Good on ya. You'll get your album covers. You will.

In the end, the remaining members of the party reclaimed the Axe of Lemm and used it to resanctify His temple. A herald of Lemm descended to thank them, granting them the weapon (among other things), and bade them go forth and bring glory to His name.

All my guys died, but it couldn't have been a better session. I have just one question: Is it Thursday yet? I'm ready to go again. 

Awww, crap. I forgot. Next Thursday is Halloween. No game. *sigh*  I guess I'm gonna have to dress up like a wizard and go frighten children and their parents. All in a day's work, I suppose. The next Thursday, though, that's gonna be glorious. How could it be anything but?

Announcement: Metal Gods 'zine is coming!

As +Adam Muszkiewicz mentioned in a recent blogpost at Dispatches from Kickassistan, the Metal Gods crew will be producing a 'zine product. It will be available both in print and in PDF. The content will be focused on the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad setting, and will give readers a chance to see how our crew does its adventuring. There will material providing background on the setting, usable gaming content, and original art.

My own contributions will be (as I recall) a new +Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game patron, and (best of all) a zero-level funnel adventure modeled on Warriors.

Except we use urchins in place of gang members.

It features two "roll all  the dice" generators as well as a special d30 table for generating special content appropriate to the Metal Gods setting: Golden Ur-Hadad, the First City of Men.

Stay tuned for more information, here and at Dispatches from Kickassistan.

Alternative Zero-level Character Generator for DCC: Updated and updated again

I have updated the Alternative Zero-level Character Generator. I had a chance, last night, to test it out with the Metal Gods crew (Adam, Gabriel, Jason, Phil, and Wayne), and we discovered that it needed a bit of tweaking and just a little more explanation of some parts of the process. This is the result.

To begin character generation:

• Start with by rolling your character attributes, using 3d6, in order.
• Your starting age is 13.
• You may be of either sex.
• Roll on the Occupation Table of your choice, or use Purple Sorcerer's excellent character generator. This roll represents your parent's (mother's or father's) profession.

 After that, you're going to go through a process of determining what has happened so far in your life, before you decided to become an adventurer. Much of this material is left to your discretion. It's there to give you some ideas about what you might have been or might have done in your life, going beyond the notion of "occupation" and getting into "biography." The idea here is that you are shaped by your past, and not merely by whatever single occupation you might have pursued before becoming an adventurer.

Along the way, you will have a change to change your attributes (by rolling for them according to the circumstances you encounter). Sometimes the results might seem counter-intuitive. For example, you might find that your character has had formal schooling, but the resulting roll against the Intelligence attribute gives you a negative modifier. How can going to school make you dumber? Think about it: How many young people go off to college only to spend their first year (or more) carousing and more or less going crazy once they are out of their parents' supervision? As a professor myself, I can only say that the answer is "not a few." It's your job as a player to determine what the results of your rolls actually mean, as they are not elaborated in the tables. They are intentionally left vague so that you have that ability.

Here is the table you'll use later, when you are told to make a roll against one or more attributes. Roll 1d7-4 for swingy rolls) or 3d6 (for stronger central tendency) each time you are asked to make a roll. The resulting modifiers should be added or subtracted from your relevant current attribute scores. None of your attributes can go below 3 or above 18. Ignore any rolls that would achieve either of those results.

Modifiers for 3d6 Roll
3 (-3)

4-5 (-2)

6-8 (-1)

9-12 (+0)

13-15 (+1)

16-17 (+2)

18 (+3)

You will roll on the following tables, using the results as inspiration for your life's story prior to becoming an adventurer. Note that some results will ask you to enter the zero-level funnel or become an adventurer. This means that your character generation process is complete:

First, you should determine your origins. From what sort of place do you come?

Where are you from? (d16)

1-5 A farm

6-8 A village

9-10 A town

11-12 A city

13-14 A wilderness area

15 A war zone

16 Nomadic (land or sea)

Then, figure out what shaped your early development.

What did you do for the first part of your life? (roll a d24)

1-8 Just like Mom/Dad: You carry on the family tradition, following in the footsteps of your mother/father. Keep your original occupation and roll once against each attribute. Hereafter, ignore any result that makes you change your occupation. Add 1d10 years to your age.

9-10 A soldier shall ye be: You are press-ganged by a high noble for a war. Change your occupation to "person-at-arms." Make rolls against Strength, Agility, Stamina. Add 1d5 years to your age.

11-12 Runaway: You run away from your home to pursue a personal ambition (pick an occupation associated with that ambition). Make rolls against Stamina, Personality, and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.

13-14 Black Sheep: You are driven in shame from your home because of something terrible that you did (or are reputed to have done). Make rolls against Stamina and Intelligence. Add 1d5 years to your age.

15-16 Fall in with a Bad Crowd: You become a juvenile delinquent. Choose an appropriate occupation (e.g., Urchin, Pickpocket, Burglar). Make rolls against Agility and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.

17-18 Student: You receive formal schooling. Make rolls against Intelligence and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.

19-20 Acolyte: You get religion, becoming an acolyte in a temple. Make rolls against Intelligence and Personality. Add 1d5 years to your age.

21-22 Apprentice: You are apprenticed to a master. Change your occupation to reflect your apprenticeship (e.g., blacksmith, jeweler, apothecary, etc.). Make rolls against either Intelligence and Personality/Strength and Agility/Stamina and Luck, depending on the apprenticeship. Add 1d5 years to your age.

23 Brush with destiny: You are blessed or corrupted in some manner. Roll against all attributes, modifying each as warranted, and using the results to determine what might have happened. Add 1d5 years to your age.

24 Roll twice on this table.

Then, you determine what happened after the developmental years of your life.

What happened next? (roll a d24)

1-12 Adventure awaits! You decided to become an adventurer. Make a roll against one Attribute (as determined by 1d6: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, or Luck). Character generation is done, and you enter the zero-level funnel.

13-16 Continue on: You carry on what you were doing last time. Make the same rolls as before and add 1d10 to your age. Character generation is done, and you enter the zero-level funnel.

17-18 Curveball: You encounter a crisis event. Make rolls against Luck and one other attribute (as determined by 1d6: Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, or Luck). Add 1d5 years to your age.

19-20 A new path: You change the course of your life. Roll on the previous table, ignoring repeated results, and add 1d10 to your age.

21 Marriage: You are wed to another. Make rolls against two of Personality, Intelligence, or Luck. Add 1d10 to your age.

22 Advanced learning: You study with a master. Roll twice against two attributes of your choice. Take the higher result of each roll. Add 1d20 to your age.

23 Junkie: You become an addict. Roll twice against two attributes (as determined by 1d6). Take the less lower result of each roll. Add 1d20 to your age.

24 Turbulent life: Roll d12+12 twice on this table.

Finally, provided that you haven't already become an adventurer and entered the zero-level funnel, you should roll on this table to determine what sort of precipitating event caused you to leave your old life behind to seek a life of adventuring. Some choose it and some are forced into it by circumstance. Use your life story so far, and the result of your roll to determine the particulars. For example, prior results may have told you that your character had married. Perhaps you roll 4 on this table—Death. In that case, your spouse might have died. Alternately, you might have had a brush with death that somehow changed you and made you want to leave your comfortable life behind.

What caused you to become an adventurer? (roll a d10)

1 Famine: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Stamina. Add 1d5 to your age.

2 War: Make a roll against either Strength or Agility. Add 1d5 to your age.

3 Pestilence: Make a roll against either Stamina or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.

4 Death: Make a roll against either Strength or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.

5 Epiphany: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Personality. Add 1d5 to your age.

6 Dream: Make a roll against either Stamina or Personality. Add 1d5 to your age.

7 Avarice: Make a roll against either Personality or Agility. Add 1d5 to your age.

8 Boredom: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.

9 Serendipity: Make a roll against two attributes of your choice. Add 1d5 to your age.

10 Roll twice on this table.

Now it's time to do some adventuring. Take these characters out into the world. Most of them will die, certainly, but those who survive may make names for themselves, or get stinking rich, or become insanely powerful. But that's another story. It's up to you to tell that story.

Ideas about Alternative Zero-level Character Generation for DCC

So, I was was thinking about something +Adam Muszkiewicz and I were discussing a while back: The character creation process for the original Traveler system. Stuff happened to your prior to your life as an adventurer. I'd like to do something similar for DCC. Here are the bones of it.

• Start with 3 character attributes at 10 and three at 11, distributed however you want them.
• You begin at an age of 13.
• You may be of either sex.
• Roll on the Occupation Table of your choice, or use Purple Sorcerer's excellent character generator. This roll represents your parent's (pick one) profession. 

After that, you're going to go through a process of determining what has happened so far in your life, before you decided to become an adventurer. Along the way, you will have a change to change your attributes (by rolling for them according to the circumstances you encounter) and using the following results. Note: This is also the table you'll use later, when you are told to make a roll against one or more attributes. None of your attributes can go below 3 or above 18. Ignore any rolls that would achieve either of those results.

3 (-3)
4-5 (-2)
6-8 (-1)
9-12 (+0)
13-15 (+1)
16-17 (+2)
18 (+3)

Then, roll on the following tables, using the results as inspiration for your life's story prior to becoming an adventurer:

Where are you from? (d16)

• 1-5 A farm
• 6-8 A village
• 9-10 A town
• 11-12 A city
• 13-14 A wilderness area
• 15 A war zone
• 16 Nomadic

What did you do for the first part of your life? (roll a d24)

• 1-8 You carry on the family tradition, following in the footsteps of your mother/father (roll once against each attribute). Hereafter, ignore any result that makes you change your occupation. Add 1d10 years to your age.
• 9-10 You are press-ganged by a high noble for a war. Change your occupation to "person-at-arms." Make rolls against Strength, Agility, Stamina. Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 11-12 You run away from your home to pursue a personal ambition (pick an occupation associated with that ambition). Make rolls against Stamina, Personality, and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 13-14 You are driven in shame from your home because of something terrible that you did (or are reputed to have done). Make rolls against Stamina and Intelligence. Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 15-16 You become a juvenile delinquent. Make rolls against Agility and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 17-18 You receive formal schooling. Make rolls against Intelligence and Luck.Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 19-20 You get religion. Make rolls against Intelligence and Personality. Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 21-22 Apprenticeship. Make rolls against either Intelligence and Personality/Strength and Agility/Stamina and Luck. Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 23 You are blessed or corrupted in some manner. Roll against all attributes, modifying each as warranted.  Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 24 Roll twice on this table.

What happened next? (roll a d24)

• 1-12 You decided to become an adventurer. Make a roll against one Attribute (as determined by 1d6) Enter zero-level funnel.
• 13-16 You carry on what you were doing last time. Make the same rolls as before and add 1d10 to your age, and enter zero-level funnel.
• 17-18 You encounter a crisis event. Make rolls against Luck and one other attribute (as determined by 1d6).  Add 1d5 years to your age.
• 19-20 You change the course of your life. Roll on the previous table, ignoring repeated results, and add 1d10 to your age.
• 21 You marry. Make rolls against two of Personality, Intelligence, or Luck. Add 1d10 to your age.
• 22 You study with a master. Roll twice against two attributes of your choice. Take the higher result of each roll. Add 1d20 to your age.
• 23 You become an addict. Roll twice against two attributes (as determined by 1d6). Take the less lower result of each roll. Add 1d20 to your age.
• 24 Roll d12+12 twice on this table.

What caused you to become an adventurer? (roll a d10)

• 1 Famine: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Stamina. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 2 War: Make a roll against either Strength or Agility. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 3 Pestilence: Make a roll against either Stamina or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 4 Death: Make a roll against either Strength or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 5 Epiphany: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Personality. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 6 Dream: Make a roll against either Stamina or Personality. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 7 Avarice: Make a roll against either Personality or Agility. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 8  Boredom: Make a roll against either Intelligence or Luck. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 9 Serendipity: Make a roll against two attributes of your choice. Add 1d5 to your age.
• 10 Roll twice on this table.

Some New Reads

I won't have a playthrough to post for a while, as I'm working on a couple of gaming projects. More or less, the stuff I normally would be posting is under wraps for the time being, until such time as we can do the Big Reveal. +Adam Muszkiewicz and I will have something to roll out in the next couple of weeks on that score, and I will have something else to post after that. Not sure how long after.

In the meantime, I've been reading some stuff that's got my gaming juices flowing. Some of it came from my boy, +Wayne Snyder, who sent me lovely GenCon swag, and included a few Kane novels by Karl Edward Wagner. If you haven't read Kane, you probably should. You may have heard of him before? Killed his brother? Cursed by God to wander the Earth forever? Yeah, that guy. He's not very nice, in fact he's downright evil, but in many ways he's a lot better than the bastards he's fighting.

I also got some new books, by new authors.

First up, we have The Grim Company by Luke Scull, an author with which I was not familiar. With this first offering, we get a pretty standard fantasy world. Fearsome northmen, corrupt and all-powerful mages, and all that sort of thing. What's best about it, I think, is how Scull puts together his protagonists from dribs and drabs of faulty humanity: Aging warriors who are definitely "too old for this shit," but nonetheless do their best, cocky self-described "hero" types who are destined for fame, and all kinds of crazy ass wizards who are incredibly powerful, each ruling his or her own kingdom in his or her uniquely fucked up way. Better yet, magic is a limited commodity. They mine it from the corpses of dead gods (who these mages killed in the Godswar, way back when). Put it all together, and it's a fun read. Recommended.

Next, we have Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. This is a lovely, lovely book, set in a corrupt, fantasy Middle-Eastern city. Given my interest in such things, what with the whole Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad thing, it fit like a comfortable old shoe. This novel is about an aging man, a trained ghul-hunter of an ancient (but fading) order. He's partnered up with a young and devout Dervish, and find themselves in the company of a young tribeswoman who can take the shape of a lioness. They face off against the rise of a terrible evil, a ghul-maker who seeks to harness the power of an ancient throne. This is pretty standard fantasy fare, I suppose, but Ahmed does an excellent job in building characters, and I found myself wishing it was a longer book. I really liked these guys a lot and wanted to see what happened next. Oh, and the good guy gets the girl in the end, which is also nice. Again, recommended.

In comparing the two books, I'd probably give them similar marks. Scull's work has more weirdness, but Ahmed's reads more like a fairy tale, if you know what I mean. Neither is quite what you'd expect, in the end, and neither author is afraid to kill off people.

By the way, I get a lot of this stuff though my membership at SFBC.com, which keeps me supplied with books. I kind of prefer the bookclub editions because they tend to package trilogies and series into a single, omnibus edition. This saves me shelf space and also ensures that I don't have to track down copies of single books. Much easier that way (Disclaimer: Edgar is not a spokesperson for SFBC.com, nor has he accepted any gratuity from them. He just likes buying books.)